I Am The Hunter, You Are My Prey
by TacticianZephine
Summary: Autobot cadets are being methodically killed, and the murderer leaves notes written on the walls above the bodies. Soon, he begins to leave threats scrawled across the doors of officers, and scrambled voice messages on their communication centers. Clearly, the killer is deranged and dangerous. But what happens when they realize that the calls are coming from inside the Base?
1. Alpha-Five

**Slightly altered version of my regular Movie timeline. I hope you like it, I had this idea awhile ago, I just didn't have a plot for it yet. I finished it, as you can see.**

* * *

It was quiet.

In the Medical Bay, the harsh Recovery Ward lights were dimmed to let the five patients inhabiting the ward recharge peacefully. Across the hall, the labs and workshops were dark.

The hallways were brightly lit by their white lights, yet behind closed doors, the living quarters, public spaces, and offices were mostly darkened. One office, however, was bathed in the soft glow of a computer screen, and two figures were pouring over information on that screen.

Further up the same hallway, the Monitor Room was lit by Security Feeds, and another officer had his optics glued to the screens on the walls. One of the cameras suddenly went white, the static obscuring the image. The Head of Security leaned up, tapping the screen.

"Come on," he quavered. "Work."

Suddenly, a loud screech ripped through the Base, echoing in the dead silence. The Head of Security dove under his console as the other conscious 'bots sprinted into the Monitor Room.

"What was that? What sector was that in?" the Second-in-Command barked, reaching under the console and yanking Red Alert out. "Red Alert, get out here and do your job!"

"S-Sec-ctor Gamma-Four..." Red Alert stammered. "That camera... it went out..."

The Second-in-Command looked up to find the camera Red Alert meant.

"I want TBL, get on the PA and cut power to all unneccessary lights," he snapped, not even looking at his assistant as he barked the orders. When nothing happened immediately, he looked at her. She was staring at the screen. "THAT'S AN ORDER, SOLDIER!"

"Yes, sir," the female nodded, leaping over the console and rushing to the public address console. She hit several switches, and the images on the screens came to life.

The white hallway lights blacked out, then slowly faded back up with a soft, purple glow, red emergency beacons pulsating at the "emergency points", an alarm sounded loudly, and mechs and femmes, clumsy from the rude awakening, staggered and stumbled out into the halls. The dark female in the Monitor Room's voice echoed over the loudspeakers all throughout the Base.

_:Attention, all personnel! This is an Emergency Code Alpha-Five. Please follow the following procedure: Officers to Sector Gamma-Four, Field Personnel and Office Staff to your assigned Safe Zones, and Intelligence Agents, you know what to do.:_

She clicked a button, and even though she stepped away from the console, her message continued to broadcast over the loudspeakers. "Total Base Lockdown initiated, all exits closed and locked. Intruder cannot possibly leave without being seen."

"Good. Bot your Alpha-Five post and get an Intelligence report from Highbrow, he's ignoring me."

"Yes, sir."


	2. Recon

**Now you get a full explanation: because Original Movie!Ember was too close to a Mary Sue for my liking, she's now Prowl's assistant, not the Head of Intel. This is more of a Prowl fic, I swear.**

**Um...**

**Yeah. That's a thing. So. Yeah.**

* * *

Her name was Recon. She was a bubbly, silver minifemme who wanted nothing more than to kick Decepticon tailfin and help the Autobots win the war. Her main mode of locomotion, rather than walking, seemed to be bouncing, as she practically needed to bounce to get anywhere in any reasonable amount of time.

Now, she lay, unmoving, on the floor. She'd been identified only by her burned hand: her face and chassis were too torn up to recognize. Above her head was scrawled a cryptic message in what looked like vital fluid.

_Recon Complete. Next step: Filter Data._

Several officers were grouped around the gruesome scene.

Optimus Prime, a sturdy, mostly-red mech, and the Autobot Commander, stood in the back with the other most physically powerful officers: crime scene investigation was not their area of expertise, and were this not an emergency, they would have been with Elita One's branch of Special Operations, which was currently roaming the halls as "Safety Patrol" with Jazz and Mirage, the Head and Assistant Head of Special Operations.

Standing in the back with Optimus were Ultra Magnus, the City Commander and the Head of Civillian Relations, who about the same size as Optimus, with blue and white plating; Highbrow, the Head of Intelligence who'd straggled in only after Prowl had sent Ultra Magnus to fetch him, a skinny mech, with dark teal plating; and Ironhide, the dark, rather stocky, canon-toting, often angry Weapons Specialist and Field Commander. On the battlefield, Ironhide was the one to be answered to, but in areas of work that he either wasn't trained for, or had no particular interest in, he was mostly good for standing around, looking scary and making sarcastic remarks.

Grouped around the corpse were the more science-oriented officers. Ratchet, a yellow mech with a temper that rivalled three of his fellow officers, was the Chief Medical Officer. Once a civillian medic, he'd taken to the military lifestyle quite well. The closest mech on-base to him was Wheeljack, the fun-loving, if not somewhat reckless, Chief Engineer. Wheeljack was notorious already for causing explosions in the Science Wing, and even had a security code dedicated to his hijinks. The rather shy Head of Sciences, Perceptor, was examining the body almost as closely as Ratchet, using the mircoscope function of his optic patch.

"Pretty ironic. 'Recon complete'," Wheeljack joked, trying to make light of a bad situation. No one seemed to appreciate that very much.

Two additional 'bots stood off to the side. One of them, a low-ranked member of the Office Staff, was a dark female called Ember. Her assignment was hardly anything more than general assistance, delivering things, retrieving things, making sure her superior refuelled. She didn't speak much, and she hated loud noise or loud environments, something that most of the general Autobot population liked to take advantage of.

The other was her superior, who she'd arrived attached to, a tall, solid, black-and-white mech named Prowl, was the Second-In-Command of the Autobot Army. Prowl was a great deal younger than his fellow officers, but that never seemed to cause a problem: his mind was far more mature than many mechs of his physical age. He was exceptionally bright, if not somewhat antisocial. He'd been a detective in the Praxian police force before the war, thus explaining his proximity to the scene.

"No one needs the jokes, Wheeljack," Prowl chastized. "Ratchet, what do you know about those wounds?"

"Well, without touching her too much, I'd guess there are nineteen of them, mostly long, uninterrupted gashes. The blade was serrated-"

"What's 'serrated' mean?" Ironhide called gruffly.

"A serrated blade has a cutting edge that has many small points of contact with the material being cut. Such as the blade of a saw," Prowl responded shortly. "Continue, Ratchet."

"The blade was serrated, as evidenced by the cut pattern on the edges of the wounds. The first one was a cut to the throat, I can tell because the mesh started to knit back together and energon started to crust on the edges. It was meant to sever her vocal processing cords and prevent her from screaming, not to kill her. The energon line in the neck was not ruptured with this cut."

"Which one killed her?" Highbrow chimed from the back.

"None that I can pinpoint. All of the wounds appear to be pre- or perimortem. Tentative cause of death is exsanguination, but I'll need to examine her further to be certain. Prowl, do you need her here to finish analysis, or can you work with a hologram?"

"Holographic mapping of crime scene is not yet complete-" the female started, but Prowl waved her off.

"As soon as my map is complete, I can work the scene, and most of the visible disruption can be cleaned up. Ember, how much longer do you need to stare at the crime scene until you've got it memorized enough to project?"

"Holographic mapping: eighty-five percent complete."

"That's about three more filters you need to run it through, that'll be a klik and a half longer, I think."

"All right, Prowl. What can the rest of us do?" Optimus asked.

"Everyone needs to stay clear of this area, and this incident is not to be discussed or acknowledged, all rumors are to be dispelled, and no information regarding Recon or this incident is to be relased to the troops. Ember, I want a false report, stating that Recon is out on... recon. Highbrow, you'll be signing it. Ultra Magnus, are you busy? No? Good, you'll be directing traffic. Divert all cadets and office staff around this sector. No one is allowed in but me. Wheeljack, I'll need a small group of Cleaner Drones down here as soon as possible."

"Holographic mapping complete," Ember piped up.

"Good. Ratchet, you may remove the victim for autopsy."


	3. Seen, Not Heard

**What? I actually updated a story past two chapters? Whoo hoo!**

* * *

"Project image from Angle Ten," Prowl said, sounding almost bored.

The image switched to a different angle, and he scrutinized the scene yet again. He'd been at this since the start of his shift that morning, and he had practically every single detail of every single angle completely memorized. Granted, that was no great feat for him. He paced back and forth through the projection, tracing fluid splatter, body positioning, everything.

"We have literally nothing to go on. Red Alert tells me that the camera stopped working when the attack happened. How close are we to getting that recording, by the way?"

"Recording is still downloading." The female wasn't even looking at the tablet she was using, continuing to project the image of the crime scene.

"It's a three-klik chunk of video, how much time could it possibly take?"

"File is encrypted on multiple levels. Simultaneous recording decoding, download and conversion commenced."

"Right. Just project the details, not the wall and floor overlay." Prowl paced around the scene, and touched the wall on either side of the fluid splatter. "There was no struggle when the cuts were made, the fluid would be much less controlled if there was."

"Information noted."

"Attacker struck from above, a given, as she was a mini. Given the viscosity of the fluid in the message, I'd say the message was daubed as the victim bled to death. Suggesting he managed to sneak off during the lockdown."

"Information noted. Notes on the attacker?"

"With the force of the blows, I'd say it's a mech. The femmes that I can't account for the whereabouts of don't have the arm strength to inflict some of these wounds. I'd say roughly my height, at least between mine and Wheeljack's, the fluid pattern is interrupted at this height on the walls. If he's my height, he was bent pretty far to reach the victim, if he's Wheeljack's, he would only need to bend his knees."

"Information noted. Download complete, decoding and conversion continuing. Refuel warning."

"Close down projection, midsolar mess is in five cycles."

*****  
It was always an odd sight to see Prowl walk into the Officers' Mess Hall. He barely remembered to refuel as it was, and when he did, he often sent his pet secretary to pick up something from the mess hall and take it back to his office. It was also odd because of said secretary. He wasn't the only officer with an assistant, but he was the only one whose assistant accompanied him into usually-officer-exclusive areas.

Officers' Mess looked almost as much like an academy cafeteria as the Mess Hall downstairs: the Central Comand officers, Highbrow, Optimus Prime, Elita One, and Jazz, sat at one table, at another were the science and medical officers: Wheeljack, Ratchet, and Perceptor, a third held the Field Officers, Ironhide, ground commander Warpath, and air commander Air Raid, and another housed the Support Staff, Ultra Magnus, Blaster, and the MiniBot commander Tailgate. Red Alert would have sat with them, if he ever left his station.

Optimus waved from across the room. "Prowl! Come here!" he called warmly.

The pair wandered over to the table with the other members of Central Command. Prowl took a seat beside Optimus. When the female didn't sit down right away, Prowl made a clicking noise at her, and she sat obediently, like a houndroid.

"How's the investigation going?" Jazz asked.

"None of your business, that's how it's going." Prowl sipped from his cube.

"Whoa, geez, don't bite my head off."

"The incident is not to be discussed or acknowledged, all rumors are to be dispelled, and no information rega-" Prowl's assistant started.

"Yes, Ember, we know. Let the officers talk," Prowl said quickly, cutting her off in the same light, condescending tone he reserved for brushing off stupid questions. He even made it a point not to even turn his head to address her. "Pretty assistants are to be seen and not heard."


	4. Joke

**Yeah... okay, some things that need to be discussed. Prowl doesn't hate females, and he doesn't think they're second-class... unless they're not officers. A subordinate is a subordinate. Em kind of came with him, so she's been his secretary for awhile now. More will be revealed about that.**

* * *

"I don't understand it. How did no one notice this?!"

Once again, the officers were grouped around a gruesome scene, this one twice as bad as the first. The two cadets had worked in the General Mess hall refectory, both female, and best friends. Their names had been Filter and Data, and they'd been "mounted" on a wall in one of the corridors. They'd been there for several megacycles before a young femme named Dauntless had found them. She was in the Medical Bay being treated for shock. They, too, were left with a message.

_Next Step: Sabotage_

"What do you think?" Optimus Prime sighed.

"Serial killer," both Ratchet and Prowl said in unison, then looked at one another. "He asked me."

"I asked Ratchet."

"Thank you. Definately a serial killer, it was the same blade. Most likely a body-mounted blade or personal wepon, considering Prowl has not found a murder weapon. Plus, I found traces of Recon's paint and fluid in the slash wounds."

"How many members of the on-base staff have serrated, body-mounted blades?" Optimus asked. "Or use serrated blades as personal weapons?"

"Off the top of my mind? Fourteen. Six officers, three Minibots, four combat cadets and one personal assistant to an officer."

"Names?" Prowl chimed, nudging his assistant to write them down.

"Eject, Steeljaw, Ramhorn, Tailgate, Prowl, Ratchet, Elita-One, Chromia, Ultra Magnus, Ember, Firestar, Moonracer, Blades, and Overdrive."

"So, we have fourteen suspects, one of which is our Investigating Officer," Prime confirmed.

"Yes, and ignoring that ridiculous fact, I can eliminate most of them right now," Prowl said lightly. He and his assistant moved forward. "Ember, play back attacker notes confirmed in current session."

"With the force of the blows, attacker is most likely a mech. The femmes whose whereabouts cannot be verified do not have the arm strength to inflict some of these wounds. Height roughly falls between those of Wheeljack and Prowl."

"How were those confirmed?"

"Look at the force of the blows to the bodies, the plating is cracked around the stab wounds. He drew his arm back completely, and considering the amount of force, he had a long way to go before he connected," Prowl informed Ratchet, demonstrating the movement. "Because the femmes with access to serrated blades don't possess the height or arm strength, Ember, Elita-One, Chromia, Firestar, Moonracer and Overdrive are not possible killers."

"And as for the mechs?"

"Right now? I can knock out Tailgate, Eject, Steeljaw, Ramhorn and Blades due to height, which leaves you and Ultra Magnus as potential suspects."

"And you."

"I can account for my whereabouts, and I have a corroborating witness as to my location."

"Your little _pet_ is not a reliable witness. She'll say anything you tell her to," Ultra Magnus butted in. "How do we know it wasn't you?"

"How do we know it wasn't _you_?" Prowl shot back.

_:Highbrow to All Officers!:_ the Head of Intelligence's voice said desperately over the comm. links.

"What is it?" Optimus replied.

_:You'd better get down here...:_

*****  
The assembly made their way to Highbrow's office, where Elita-One let out a shrill scream and clung to Optimus's arm.

Daubed on Highbrow's office door, in fresh fluid, was a more frightening message.

_Get off my case, or you're all going to fry._  
_I know your secrets, won't believe your lies._  
_You know who I am, but never will see._  
_For you, my dear friends, will never catch me._

"... this is sick. A sick cadet joke. Someone go find Red Alert to get the security feeds from this corridor!" Ironhide yelled over his shoulder.

Optimus detached Elita from him. "Just what we need, a practical joker."

"I don't think it's a joke, sir," Prowl cut in, peering at the glyphs. "Ember, analyze. Prove the following: writing style is identical to that of the messages at the crime scenes."

"... Statement is true," the dark one nodded.


End file.
